


Eye of Ender

by MaggicSorceress



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Enderman Hybrid Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Especially after this, Eye Trauma, Gen, Heavy Angst, I'm sorry but I'm not, Minecraft logic, They all do tbh, Toby Smith | Tubbo Needs a Hug, and neither is the author lmao, just three best friends running away from a world that hurt them, kind of hurt/comfort but theres a lack of significant amounts of comfort, only to get more hurt in the process, the kids deserve to be kids but life isn't kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:20:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29322330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaggicSorceress/pseuds/MaggicSorceress
Summary: Running for their lives, Tubbo, Tommy, and Ranboo realize there is only one place they can go to escape Dream forever.The End.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), Ranboo & Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Comments: 10
Kudos: 202





	Eye of Ender

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! I'm a terrible person for writing this lmao, but we been knew so whatever.  
> TW!:  
> Eye trauma, like seriously. I didn't go into a lot of detail for it, but it is there and there is a description of it. So if that is a no-go for you please don't read any further k thanks! <3  
> The eye trauma also, I guess, falls under the Body Horror category so that's why it's there.  
> -Maggic

Dream had escaped. 

_Dream had escaped._

Logically, Tubbo knew it was only a matter of time before he did. The peacefulness of the server, well, aside from the whole egg catastrophe, wasn’t bound to last, that was something he had known from the moment they had locked Dream up. 

He’d hoped the peace would last at least a little longer, though. Snowchester was coming along beautifully, and he didn’t really want to have to reactivate the nukes, but it seemed like another war was peering over the horizon, waiting for the moment he was least prepared to strike. 

Frankly, Tubbo was tired of it. He just wanted to live in Snowchester, in its secluded section of land away from the main area of the SMP, away from the conflict and the wars and the causes of all the things he’d rather not think about, but alas, Dream had escaped, and with him would only come more chaos, more conflict. Tubbo wasn’t sure if he’d survive another war, not with his remaining one life being common knowledge throughout the SMP. He had the nukes, and he wasn’t afraid of using them per-say, but Tommy had gotten a little too close to the test sight last time he had launched one. After that, he had promised himself that he wouldn’t be launching the nukes unless he was with Tommy. He needed to be sure his friend was safe from that. 

Still, Tubbo was scared. He hadn’t been sleeping, had kept a constant eye out whenever he stepped as much as a foot out of Snowchester for any movement between the trees, any flash of neon green or emotionless smiles, and for the first time since the L’Manberg days, he wore armour everywhere he went. Constantly being on edge was familiar to him, he wore paranoia easily, and although he’d never been keen on violence, he wasn’t above lashing out in self-defense, or in defense of the people he cared about. 

Dream scared him, because although the god of the world was also on his only remaining life, so were he and Tommy and, even though they were good fighters, Dream was much stronger and more prepared. 

Tubbo didn’t want to stick around to find out what Dream would do to them for throwing him in prison. 

Tommy approached him one night, one week before the grand opening of the BigInnit hotel, when they were hanging out in Snowchester with Ranboo. 

“Tubbo.” Tommy said, voice unusually serious. “We should leave.” 

Tubbo blinked, a little taken back. “What do you mean?” 

“I mean...” Tommy sighed. “Dream got out. We’re living on borrowed time, you and me.” 

“You think he’s coming after us?” 

“I’m sure of it.” 

“But he wouldn’t kill you.” Tubbo said. “He said so.” 

“Sure, but he’d kill you and then lock me up in the prison!” Tommy said, arms flinging around in a way that betrayed how distressed by that outcome he was. “I couldn’t handle that, Tubbo! So, we need to go and we need to go now, somewhere far, far away where he can’t find us.” 

“Tommy, he owns this land. There’s nowhere we could go where he wouldn’t find us.” 

“We don’t know that!” 

“Yes, we do!” 

“So, why don’t you go somewhere not in this world?” Ranboo’s voice chimed up unexpectedly, causing them both to jump and look over to where the half-enderman sat with them on the ground. 

“We can’t leave the server, Ranboo.” Tubbo said. “Dream locked it when he was released, remember?” 

“I don’t mean leave the server.” Ranboo said, tail twitching in his lap. 

“He’ll find us even if we go to the Nether, big man.” Tommy muttered as he snapped a stick in half and threw it into the crackling flames of their campfire. 

“What if you go to the End?” 

Tommy and Tubbo exchanged curious glances before looking back at Ranboo. 

“I thought no one was able to access the End?” Tubbo asked. “Has that changed?” 

Ranboo shrugged. “There’s always a way to access the End, Dream just told everyone it was impossible to get there to stop people from going.” 

“How do you know all of this?” Tommy said with narrowed eyes. 

“There’s a stronghold near Techno’s house, near where I live.” Ranboo admitted. “The portal there is broken, but it wouldn’t need to be broken if there wasn’t a point to it in the first place.” 

“If we can find another stronghold with a portal we could go.” Tommy said, eyes reflecting the dancing light of the campfire. 

“But how do we find a stronghold?” Tubbo asked. “Surely there must be a way other than luck?” 

“According to a book I read,” Ranboo began, shifting where he sat, “you need ender eyes to find it. They lead you to it.” 

“Well, we can get those easily!” 

“Yeah, we’ve just got to go get pearls.” Tommy added. “Shouldn’t be too bad, so long as we dedicate a few days to it.” 

The three teens exchanged looks, nodding subtly and fighting the grins that wanted to grow on their faces. 

“Three days then.” Tubbo said. “Three days and we meet up here and go. Sound good?” 

“Three days.” Tommy agreed. Ranboo nodded, and the three of them went back to enjoying the quiet of the night and each other’s presence. 

~ 

They didn’t get three days. 

They barely got one. 

Tommy ran, scrambling through the woods towards Snowchester as if there were the hounds of hell on his heels, weaving between trees and bushes, ripping his clothes on the thorns of berry bushes and nearly faceplanting more times than he could count. He vaulted himself over the fence surrounding the quaint arctic village and scurried up to the door of Tubbo’s house, flinging it open with a slam. 

Tubbo jolted awake in his bed, hand flying to his sword as he threw off the blankets, only to immediately calm down once he saw who it was. 

“Tommy? What’s going on?” 

“We need to go and we need to go _now.”_ Tommy explained, out of breath. “Dream knows we’re leaving, he chased me here, we need to go now!” 

Tommy didn’t have time to explain any more, but thankfully Tubbo didn’t ask questions, just hauled-ass over to a nearby chest and threw on his armour, sheathing a sword at his hip and an axe across his back. 

“I don’t have enough ender eyes...” Tubbo muttered, pulling out a small pouch from the chest that clattered with the sound of ender eyes. 

“Bring some blaze powder, we’ll get pearls on the way!” 

Tubbo nodded and descended the ladder to his basement, returning not even thirty seconds later with another smaller bag of the golden powder. He fastened both the small bags to the belt at his waist and he and Tommy fled the house, taking only the necessities with them and disappearing into the forest. 

As they ran, Tommy pulled out his communicator and fired out a quick message. 

_You whisper to_ _Ranboo_ _: Dream’s after us. We need to leave, now. Meet me and_ _Tubbo_ _at the_ _L’Manberg_ _docks._

_Ranboo_ _whispers to you: I’ll be right there. Are you two_ _okay_ _?_

_You whisper to_ _Ranboo_ _: We’re fine just get there!_

Sure enough, when they arrived at the docks Ranboo was there waiting for them, enchanted armour gleaming and eyes slightly glowing in the night. He was imposing to see from a distance, but the worried glint in his eyes and the slight smile on his face had any fears melting from the duo, and for a moment Tommy and Tubbo wondered why they had been, however briefly, frightened by Ranboo, who was probably the least scary person on the server. You know, if you overlooked the whole ‘enderman’ thing. 

They skidded to a halt beside him and Tommy set to work crafting two boats from a nearby crafting table while Tubbo bounced on his heels and fiddled with the hilt of his sword. 

“Ranboo,” Tommy began, throwing down the boats into the ocean, “I’ll admit this feels weird to ask you, but how many pearls do you have on you?” 

“Uhhhmmmm...” Ranboo pulled the backpack off of his back, and rummaged through it for a second. “I have three...” 

“Tubbo?” 

“I’ve got five. Sorry Tommy.” Tubbo said as he climbed into one of the boats. 

“Shit!” Tommy spat. “Well, let's just try to get a few more on the way.” 

“Do either of you have blaze powder?” Ranboo asked, taking the bag from Tubbo’s outstretched hand. “Thanks.” 

Lightning quick, Ranboo turned the powder and one of his pearls into an eye of ender. “I figured the quicker we get to the portal the better. We can...uh...get more pearls on the way.” 

“Good thinking, Mr. Boo!” Tubbo cheered. 

The three teens clambered into the boats and made their way out into the open ocean, leaving the mainland and the ruins of L’Manberg behind them. 

Hopefully, for the last time. 

~ 

The ocean was endless, it seemed, as they trailed behind the sparkling purple trails of the ender eye where it floated in the sky, leading them slowly towards where the stronghold was buried beneath the ground. They hadn’t seen land in hours, and all three of them wanted to stand up and stretch their legs. 

Not to mention their food was beginning to run thin. 

At the suggestion of Tubbo, all three of them had brought a surplus of potatoes and carrots and stacks upon stacks of coal blocks. There were no animals in the end, and you couldn’t really survive off of chorus fruit, so Tubbo had suggested they pack some dirt, vegetables, and water so they could live off of a garden. 

It was smart, and both Tommy and Ranboo were thankful that Tubbo had thought of that. 

Finally, after what felt like years at sea, they reached land again. 

Following the ender eye, they took off through the birch forest, weaving between trees and utilizing Ranboo’s height to catch the eye when it fell as the other two branched off slightly, searching for a few endermen. 

Tubbo and Tommy only found one, but with their looting swords and sheer luck, it dropped three pearls. They only needed to find one more and they’d be fine, the portal would be lit, and they would be gone before Dream realized where they had entered the End from. 

They were confident, stepped lighter, made more jokes with each other... 

Until all of their communicators dinged at once. 

_Dream whispers to you: I know where you are. I’ll kill you before you even enter that stronghold._

None of them read the full message, all they needed to see was the name before they broke out into a full-blown sprint. Luck happened to be on their side, and they only had to follow the eye for a few minutes more before the three of them exchanged glances and begun digging down into the earth. 

They fell into the stronghold with a loud thud that echoed off the stone walls around them, the darkness and silence a bit frightening. Immediately, they all took off down the stronghold, running through old, rarely used doors and down crumbling, moss covered staircases. The echoes of their footsteps on the walls around them only heightening their paranoia. 

That paranoia intensified to sheer panic when the closer they got to the portal room, the more those echoes started to sound like their own individual set of footsteps, getting faster the closer they got to the trio. When Tubbo chanced a glance behind them and saw a familiar white mask that haunted his nightmares, he shrieked and called out to the other two to run faster. 

Once they reached the portal room, it was a mad dash to barricade the doors, even with the slight advantage they had with the sheer amount of obsidian they had brought with them. Tommy and Tubbo scrambled to keep the entrance sealed, throwing Ranboo the blaze powder and their pouches of ender pearls, telling the taller of the three to open the portal. 

“Uhm...guys?” Ranboo said, standing to the side of the portal frame. “We’ve got a bit of a problem.” 

“What is it now?” Tommy shouted. 

“We’re one eye short! I can’t open the portal!” 

“Shit!” Tubbo muttered, pressing himself against the barrier, Tommy doing the same, to try and stall for as much time as possible. “Tommy! Go up and find one more!” 

“We don’t have time for that!” Tommy grunted. 

Worry overtook Ranboo’s thoughts and he paced back and forth, round and round the portal frame, hands twisting around themselves and tail swishing in agitation. Muttering almost frantically to himself, Ranboo devoted all his attention to his swirling thoughts instead of to his friends, trusting them to hold up the defenses while he attempted to come up with a plan. 

“We’re missing an eye...” Ranboo mumbled. “We don’t have enough time to go back up to the surface, even with our enchanted picks, and there’s no guarantee that there are endermen up there. Tommy and Tubbo are holding Dream off. I can’t go up and kill them...what do I do, what do I do, what do I do?” 

The glistening of one of the ender eyes in its slot in the portal frame caught Ranboo’s attention, pulled his gaze away from the spacy, half-paying-attention zone he had entered. His reflection gleamed back at him from the smooth surface of the eye and he had half the mind to turn away and get back to thinking when he noticed something, something that should have been as clear as day. 

His right eye, a similar glossy emerald to the ones sitting in the portal, stared back at him from a sea of deep black. 

Taking a breath, Ranboo steeled himself. 

“Ranboo please tell me you’ve thought of something!” Tommy demanded. Ranboo could only nod, slightly numb, hands shaking. 

“I have but...” Ranboo said. “But before I tell you I need you to promise that you’ll trust me. I need one of you guys’ help too.” 

Tommy nodded once to Tubbo and he quickly left Tommy’s side, hurrying over to Ranboo with wide eyes. 

“What’s the plan, big man?” Tubbo asked. 

Ranboo took a breath, reaching out to grab hold of Tubbo’s shoulders, gaze focused between the shorters’ eyes. “Tubbo...listen...what I’m about to ask you to do isn’t going to be easy, but we don’t have any other option right now.” 

“Alright, what do you need?” 

“I...” Ranboo’s mouth struggled to form the words, to voice the specifics in what he was asking his best friend to do. So, silently, he raised one hand and pointed to his right eye. “I...need you to get this for me.” 

Tubbo blinked up at him, eyebrow raising, and he opened his mouth to ask what Ranboo meant when the statement and the meaning of Ranboo’s gesture caught up to him and his eyes widened in horror. 

“No.” 

“Tubbo-” 

“No!” Tubbo shouted. “That’s your fucking eye! I’m not doing that!” 

“Tubbo, please,” Ranboo said, fighting to keep his voice from wavering as he lowered himself to sit on the stairs, putting his face at Tubbo’s eye level, “we don’t have time to find any more pearls, Dream is outside that wall and he could be breaking in at any minute to kill us all, _we can’t afford to take more time.”_

“Ranboo I am _not_ ripping out your fucking eye! We’ll figure something else out! We’ll-” 

“There’s no time! There’s no other option!” 

“There must be!” 

“No there _isn’t!_ I’d rather have my two best friends alive at the end of the day than have both my eyes!” Ranboo shouted, voice breaking as he reached out to grab one of Tubbo’s hands. “ _Please,_ Tubbo!” 

“Dream’s let up. I think he’s going around.” Tommy said, eyes dark with the subject of conversation. He sat on the other side of Ranboo, resting a hand on the hybrid’s shoulder and squeezing slightly. “Ranboo is right. We don’t have time.” 

Tubbo shook, eyes wide and the beginning of tears dampening his lower lashes, before he swallowed and his eyes hardened. “You better be alright Ranboo, you hear me? I’ll beat the shit out of you if you’re not okay.” 

Ranboo nodded and mustered a small smile. Tommy reached out to tightly grip Tubbo’s shoulder with one hand and Ranboo’s hand with the other, simultaneously squeezing both. 

“This better work, Ranboo.” Tommy muttered. 

“It will, I’m sure of it.” 

Adrenaline fueling all of them, the moments between Ranboo’s eye being nestled in its socket and it being in Tubbo’s right fist were blurred. A mess of brilliant green blood and muffled sobs as the grip Tommy had on Tubbo’s shoulder grounded him, kept him from stopping and falling to his friend’s feet as the sobs breaking free from his throat caught on stuttering apologies. Tommy refused to watch, ears trained for the sounds of Dream breaking in and hands refusing to lessen their grip on his two friends, thumb pressing circles into dark skin as Ranboo shook through waves of agony but still remained steadfast, jaw clenched tightly, tears spilling over his cheeks, and yet still letting out breathy apologies and encouragements to the teen whose fingers were half-buried in his eye socket. 

Ranboo was unconscious by the time Tubbo held the emerald orb in his hand, fingers stained with warm blood and sobs still wracking his form. 

Exposed to the cold, natural air, the eye hardened to the familiar gem-like consistency of the eyes sitting in the portal frame. Tubbo slipped it into the slot and there was a deafening crash of thunder as the portal activated, the void opening before them in the empty space in the center of the frame. 

Supporting Ranboo’s weight across their shoulders, Tommy and Tubbo jumped, Tommy reaching out to grab one of the eyes from the frame, before they vanished with the void from the lands of the SMP. 

They hoped this new life would be kinder. 


End file.
